Albertis S. Harrison Jr., 88, Dies; Led Virginia as Segregation Fell

By WOLFGANG SAXON

Published: January 25, 1995

Albertis S. Harrison Jr., who served as State Attorney General and Governor as Virginia made its last stand against racial integration, died on Monday at his home in Lawrenceville, Va. He was 88.

The cause was a heart attack, the Governor's office in Richmond said.

Mr. Harrison's time in office came as the state turned from a rural to an industrialized society, and he contributed significantly to that development with road construction and other economic programs. He also left a legacy of a greatly improved educational system.

Allied with the conservative organization headed by Harry F. Byrd Sr., Mr. Harrison took a more cautious position on desegregation, avoiding its doctrine of "massive resistance."

By virtue of his office, Mr. Harrison was involved in confrontations with the Federal Government as Attorney General from 1958 to 1962 and then as Governor until 1966. These included Virginia's legal battles to continue a poll tax and close public schools in Prince Edward County, which ended up leaving black pupils without a formal education for four years.

The county supervisors ordered the public schools padlocked to avoid integrating them. White pupils then attended a private academy with their tuitions subsidized by the state. Most of the 1,700 black children had no schools to go to while the issue was decided in Federal court.

Prince Edward County was the only school district in the country to resort to such extreme measures. In 1963, schools were ordered to open, and when the Supreme Court agreed in 1964, the supervisors gave in rather than risk prison. By then, the Governor was advising Virginians to heed the law unless they were willing to face prosecution, and civil-rights leaders were generally pleased with the level of compliance in the state.

After he left the Governor's Mansion, Mr. Harrison became a judge of the state's Supreme Court of Appeals, retiring in 1981. In 1968 he headed a commission that streamlined the State Constitution, and one clause the panel purged from the 1923 version was a commandment that "white and colored children shall not be taught in the same school."

Albertis Sydney Harrison Jr. was born into Southern aristocracy in Alberta, Va., in Brunswick County. His home sat on a tract deeded to an ancestor, Henry Harrison, by King George II in 1732. His family tree boasted one Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, along with William Henry Harrison and a second Benjamin Harrison, the 9th and 23d Presidents, respectively.

A graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, Mr. Harrison easily made his way into Virginia's political elite as he served as Brunswick County prosecutor before being elected Attorney General.

As Governor he persuaded the Legislature to increase educational financing for new schools and laboratories, to raise teachers' pay and to provide an enhanced teacher scholarship program, among other things. He pressed for state-supported colleges, technical schools and improved vocational training.

He helped to modernize state banking laws to attract investment and accelerated highway construction.

His survivors include his wife of 54 years, Lacey Barkley Harrison, and a daughter, Antoinette H. Jamison of Richmond.